HR’s contribution to have impact on NHS star ratings

People management abilities at NHS Trusts will directly affect hospitals’
star ratings after an NHS-wide balanced scorecard is introduced this summer.

Plans for the new balanced scorecard were revealed exclusively to Personnel
Today by the Department of Health’s HR director Andrew Foster.

He said the scorecard, to be launched at the HR in the NHS conference in
Birmingham in June, will be piloted by Trusts in the 2003-04 financial year,
before becoming mandatory the following year.

"We want to test it in 2003-04, and then in the next financial year
this will become the system that measures the contribution of HR. It will be an
element of the overall performance review – the star rating," he said.

Foster said the scorecard will look at two fundamental objectives identified
as strategic.

First, the aim to get more staff into the NHS and to recruit at a rate of
about 50,000 extra staff a year, and second, the scorecard will link to how HR
is changing the nature of work in the NHS, reorganising services and jobs
around patient needs.

Under these two objectives, HR success will be judged in four areas: whether
it is making the NHS a model employer; whether it is offering a model career;
improvements in morale; and by its ability to raise the capacity of the trust.

Exactly how the scorecard will operate is still to be fine-tuned.

Foster said: "Clearly, there are some fairly subjective judgements
there, and there will be even more as we go into those areas."

Foster said because the scorecard is linked to existing strategy and data
processes, it should not increase red tape.